I last did that ~ 2001 when I still had a 5.25" floppy in my PC and a Vortex for the CPC. From there I could copy it to 3".
Now, I no longer have all that crap ;D What's a good way of creating a good old physical 3" disk from a DSK image these days?
I also recall I had a solution which would use some kind of parallel port cable to transmit stuff from the PC and it would get written to disk on the CPC. I lost that capability too.
I do not want to try to connect a 3" drive to my Laptop. And I no longer have a PC box (only a laptop).
Open to any suggestions! :)
I have some very old pc here and there with internal 3.5 drive.
I write the image on a disk and to my 3.5 on my cpc which is mounted as B.
Discology makes the rest.
Great idea, right... I once had a 3.5" floppy for the CPC (I think I even assembled it myself, but I no longer have it and I forgot how to do that - but I can probably resurrect that knowledge)
I still have a USB 3.5" floppy drive for my Laptop, I think that might work. How do you write the DSK file from the PC to the 3.5" PC floppy? What program is doing that?
USB drives will not work, well maybe for a very few images.
You just need an old pc with XP/7 and the utility CPCDiskXP.
Also you must run first an included driver just once as far as I remember.
The utility formats, writes, takes backups and you can extract or include files in a new image.
Quote from: VincentGR on 17:46, 07 September 18
USB drives will not work, well maybe for a very few images.
You just need an old pc with XP/7 and the utility CPCDiskXP.
Also you must run first an included driver just once as far as I remember.
The utility formats, writes, takes backups and you can extract or include files in a new image.
Ah right, CPCDiskXP... I have used it in the past!
Hmm, old PC box... not sure I want to go there anymore.
You are right the most USB floppies are not working.
I remember vaguely that I have one that works, but
I might be wrong.
I will try and post whether I got it running.
... just bought the 3.5" cable and floppy kit from @ikonsgr (http://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=541) on Ebay.
I used a few command-line tools on Linux, but it was also a long time ago now.After HxC came along it's all SD card now.
Yeah, I have a Gotek, HxC, DDI-3, M4, ... and some other stuff like this as well, but I'd like to use my supply of 3" disks as well. Otherwise, why am I spending all the time every couple of years replacing drive belts?? :laugh:
I am old school. Sometimes I like my EPROM board and 3" drive best.
Tried my USB PC 3.5" floppy, and no, it does not work with CPCDiskXP, since the fdinstall.exe doesn't like my USB drive.
Now I stumbled over this one here:
https://www.kryoflux.com/?page=kf_features (https://www.kryoflux.com/?page=kf_features)
Anybody has that? That looks like a valid option for Laptop owners.
Another option for a real FDC:
http://www.cbmstuff.com/proddetail.php?prod=SCP
KF and SCP do work well.
I use a KF with a FDI-1 drive for imaging disks and in theory you can write them back.
That means you hooked up the FD-1 directly to the KF and access it via USB from the Laptop / PC?
Would be super curious to learn if you can just write back a DSK file and if that'll really work on the CPC in its 3" drive.
Yes, that's what I mean.
I haven't tried writing a disk, but it should be possible.
You will not be able to use a dsk file directly, but you can convert it to the raw KF format using the excellent HxC software.
Would you mind really trying it? The device is kind of pricey... since I will be mainly using it only to write 3" disks, it would be great to know for sure it works.
Right now, I can't, as I just moved to Stockholm a couple of months ago and I have all my stuff in a storage place.
If you have a 6128, I think that the main way for creating 3" disks is the following:
- You get a dsk image from the web or you create your own on the PC (with tools like CPCDiskXP)
- you get a Gotek drive with it's cable for CPC
- Then, you use a disk copy software (like Discology) on the 6128 to copy from the gotek (drive B) to the 3" disk (drive A).
Regarding the Kryoflux, I think it's mainly useful to create disk images from the physical disks, not to create new physical disks. Regarding creating new 3" physical disks, I think the Kryoflux is only useful if you want to recreate an
original disk with its original protections. For this, you'll need
- a 3" disk without any bad sector (use MarkError to check the disk)
- a Kryoflux
- a FD1/DDI1 that you connect to the kryoflux (as I remember, 5v must be removed somewhere on the FD1)
From this, you can in theory copy a raw image from the PC to the 3" disk.
I'll try that. Since my main computer is a 464, I'll have to find a dual floppy setup where one floppy is DDI3, the other one a FD1 or similar. I believe the DDI3 has a port for a second floppy (never used it, but it looks like one). I also have an HXC floppy emulator, for that one for sure i know it can work as second drive in combination with a real FD1 3" drive.
Quote from: LambdaMikel on 20:08, 01 October 18
I'll try that. Since my main computer is a 464
As soon as you want to do some work with floppy disks, I think the 6128 is really a nice to have, since it's very easy to get a two-floppy configuration or 1 floppy and a Gotek.
And if you enjoy tapes, you can still plug a tape player into the 6128 !
Well, it's not that I don't have one - I have one, but it's usually stored in a box in the garage. Being a 464 user for ~ 33 years, I just don't like the keyboard of the 6128. It is not very ergonomic at all with all the clustered keys with no pressure point.
I never used a 464 so I can't really compare. But it's true that when we are used to a particular keyboard, it's not easy to appreciate others.
Personally, as 6128 user, I like its keyboard ;D
Copy the DSK to HFE, then from HxC floppy emulator to physical 3".
Has anybody ever used the extra floppy port connector of the DDI3? Does it work with FD1?
Found a solution, using FD-1 as secondary and HxC as primary drive. With DDI-1 controller.
Excellent! :)
Hello,
If you need to convert any dsk file back with a Kryoflux (or a SCP), you can try and use "SugarConvDsk".
It's main goal is to convert any format to almost any other format (Kryoflux RAW is not writable at the moment).
So you can take a dsk from the internet, then convert it to IPF (then write back to a disk with your Kryoflux), or SCP (and do the same with your SCP).
It's working even with protected software (even with weak sectors), the only one that's not always workings are protections that needs specific data accross the index.
Last version is build 124, here : https://github.com/Tom1975/SugarConvDsk/releases/tag/SugarConvDsk-v124
Also, a Linux version is available, but was not really fully tested.
Oh that brings back memories... funny how the era of me connecting my FD-1 to my then-new PC now seems retro to me :D
Quote from: Lone on 21:59, 04 October 18
If you need to convert any dsk file back with a Kryoflux (or a SCP), you can try and use "SugarConvDsk".
SugarConvDsk works indeed pretty well, thanks @Lone (http://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=886) !
Recently, I wanted to recreate few original disks that were not working anymore. Unfortunately, the Kryoflux can write a physical disk only from 'KF stream' files or IPF files. I didn't find any public IPF files for the CPC (it seems that the Software Preservation Society doesn't make them public) and, of course, you can get valid 'KF stream' files only if you have a working original disk ... :(
I then had only DSK or CT-RAW images available from the web. I used SugarConvDsk to convert them to IPF and then write a floppy with the Kryoflux.
It worked pretty well, from both DSK and CT-RAW. :D
Notes:
- I'm using a FD1 with the Kryoflux for dumping and writing floppies
- to write a floppy disk with the Kryoflux, you need to make sure that the floppy disk has no track with any issue (using for instance MarkError to check if the floppy is 'perfect')
- For french speakers, there is a discussion here : https://cpcrulez.fr/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=6152 (https://cpcrulez.fr/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=6152)
Quote from: Gryzor on 13:53, 06 November 18
Oh that brings back memories... funny how the era of me connecting my FD-1 to my then-new PC now seems retro to me :D
My next experience will actually be to connect my not so new PC to the FD-1 ;) I never did it. It's a core2duo that is old enough to still have a floppy connector, and modern enough to support a recent OS.
The problem is that with new operating systems, we don't necessary get a floppy support out of the box, and it took me some time for instance to be able to dump a 3.5" floppy disk from Linux. ???
Ι must have been running Windows 2000 at the time... but, I remember that it was actually quite painless and easier than I thought it would be. Didn't have much use for it, since I didn't have any personal disks I wanted to dump or anything, but just went ahead for the fun of it.
What would be super cool would be connecting the FD-1 to my i7 laptop :D
Quote from: Gryzor on 11:05, 07 November 18
What would be super cool would be connecting the FD-1 to my i7 laptop :D
Well, you can do it (at least for dumping and writing disks - no direct access), but you need the Kryoflux between the laptop and the FD1.
Let me rephrase that:
What would be super cool would be connecting the FD-1 to my i7 laptop without having to spend €130 an preferably without any more hardware on my lap :D